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Comment by jrmurad | Hacker News Reader

> I have yet to meet an artist

You went from an unprovable absolute claim to providing anecdotal evidence. I'm not saying you're wrong... just that what you've said so far doesn't convince me that "copyright should not be effectively forever" or that "50 years after they are dead" is "effectively forever".

This is by no means my area of expertise, but I'll give you an (probably unoriginal) example. Let's say an artist creates something at age 30. He could use some extra money at age 70. Wouldn't he be able to sell the rights for more to someone who the law will allow to retain those rights for more years after this artist has died?

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It is not an unprovable absolute claim that Picasso has not produced any artwork since he has died - it is a fact.

The only question is would having long copyright have motivated Picasso to have created more art when he was alive. Given that the extensions to his copyright occurred after he died we can be pretty certain that unless he was a clairvoyant that the later retrospective changes to the copyright laws did not motivate him to produce anything.

More fundamentally great artists create art because they have to - it is part of their core. Art existed before copyright for exactly this reason.

what's discouraging is that some of you are essentially implying that picasso should have sold himself as a service (make more art while alive) instead of doing whatever a once-in-a-timeline artistic genius needs to do to create priceless artifacts that, by the way, required the investment of his, and his family member's, lives to realize. when his works are equatable with the lyrics to "happy birthday" this might be worth revisiting; until then why don't you buy some art? http://fineartamerica.com/featured/copyright-john-muellerlei...

Actually not at all. I believe from all I have read about Picasso he would have been a productive artist even if no copyright existed - he was a great artist and creating art was at his core.

I actually buy a lot of art - I have long since run out of wall space to hang it all :) None of the artists I buy are producing art just for the money and copyright plays no role in why they are an artist.

> I believe from all I have read about Picasso > None of the artists I buy are producing art just for the money and copyright plays no role

You seem to be presuming to know the motivations of every artist to have existed based on your personal experience. Is it so inconceivable to you that there may be someone who, let's say, is considering writing a book, wouldn't at all be motivated by how much money he could earn in return for the investment of his time? And take into account the fact that he could potentially sell the rights for considerably more, the longer copyright guarantees exclusive rights to the owner?

The value of lengthly copyright is basically zero to any rights buyer at the time of production due to the very high discount rate used in the arts and publishing industry. If it weren't zero then publishers would pay more to young authors than old authors. If you can find one artist that has ever said they create more because their heirs can live off the copyright 50 years after they are dead please show us.

The only value to retrospective copyright extension is to give a windfall profit to rights holders long after the artist is dead. It is outright theft of our cultural heritage.

> not an unprovable absolute claim that Picasso has not produced any artwork since he has died

That is not what you originally said. You said:

> Not one new artwork is produced by still allowing copyright on Picasso's artwork.

I pointed out that the same copyright terms which apply to Picasso's works may motivate some artist, somewhere, to create "one new artwork" which he wouldn't have otherwise.

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